REVIEW: The Nyrius ARIES Pro is a Powerful, Professional Solution For Your Home Office AND Video Shoots!

For a videographer, or cinematographer (depending on what you prefer to be labeled), there are probably billions of things that you want to buy.

There’s always a new lens, or filter or rig or anything—it’s truly never-ending. What you don’t see too often is a product that’s not just useful on location, but it’s useful in the home and in your everyday life as well. This is perhaps the most intriguing thing for me about the Nyrius ARIES Pro. It’s a multi-use device that will give you professional results on-set, and makes life cleaner and more organized at home.

So what is the Nyrius ARIES Pro? It’s a wireless HDMI transmitter (at a very reasonable price) that sends a 1080p signal up to 100ft (30ft if you purchase the Nyrius ARIES Prime and want to save a little $) with zero latency. Now instantly, you cinematographers are probably thinking about setting up an easy, and portable video-village for clients, but before you try to convert this for that use (which I’ll discuss later), consider it’s original and intended application.

The Nyrius ARIES Pro is a champ at sending signal from your laptop, Blu-Ray player or console to a screen across the room or even a couple rooms over. It’s tailor made for situations where long HDMI cables fail or become ugly or cumbersome. The ARIES Pro with it’s 100 foot signal lets you set up a room however you’d like.

But there are plenty of wireless HDMI adapters on the market, so why choose the Nyrius? For me, it comes down to a two big things.

Ease of use and reliability.

The Nyrius ARIES Pro is incredibly easy to use. While you might be adapting it to serve a function outside of its original purpose (like sending signal from your camera to client monitors) – it’s still remarkably easy to put together. It doesn’t throw you any curve balls. If you look at the pieces for ten seconds, you can figure out how it works, and how you can make it work for you.

Both the receiver and transmitter require power, but neither have extraneous buttons or options that would simply slow down operation, or potentially complicate its function. When I first opened my Nyrius, it was when a friend was visiting and we wanted to watch a film on my living room television. I opened the box, and within 5 minutes, the film was going. No problems. For me, that kind of simplicity is very attractive and adds to why I believe the Nyrius is a fantastic investment.

Reliability is probably the most important aspect of the two, for obvious reasons. If you can’t expect the device to work over long periods of time, you can’t trust it to be working correctly when the goings get tough (like on an important shoot). While I don’t consider this a true downfall when using the ARIES Pro in the home, it’s important to note that this is not a true uncompressed HDMI signal. Here, we’re all at least some level of image geeks, and as such, it’s best to be up front. When really pushing the Nyrius to its limits, especially in the presence of other wireless or radio signals, you can (if you really try) notice artifacting when there’s a lot of motion. But without trying to sound like I’m dodging anything, for the price, it’s fantastic! It really, really is.

For me, someone who is notoriously critical of image issues like this, it only became obvious when I really was trying to find problems. So the question here is, “Is it worth $249 if it sometimes has some artifacting?” And the answer is, “ABSOLUTELY.” But, here are a couple things to keep in mind:

One, the power situation on the wireless transmitter itself is a bit inconvenient sometimes. It’s powered by a USB port located (in my opinion) far too close to the male HDMI. Meaning, when it’s plugged into your laptop, it can block other ports next to your HDMI. This was never an actual issue, but it seems as though perhaps powering from the end of the stick itself, would be much smarter and convenient.

They’ve provided a workaround by way of a 270 degree M to F HDMI adapter. This opens potential neighboring data ports for business, but also, makes the transmitter itself less convenient. That being said, the USB style power let me use a P-Tap to Mini-USB converter and power directly from my Switronix brick. This opened up the door to me using the Nyrius on set. You’ve got to take the good with the bad.

Secondly, this device can’t be totally relied upon when you’re in an environment with other strong signals directly nearby. I had setup this device right next to a wireless router, and experienced some minor, but noticeable artifacts. Almost instantly, I identified the issue and remedied it, but it’s something to keep in mind depending on your set up at home or on location. I have used this device when duplicating my laptop and iMac’s screens and though they were receiving Wi-Fi signals, the device worked perfectly. The issue was incredibly isolated.

For me the biggest selling point of the ARIES Pro is its ability to become the MVP of your video village set up. Its flexibility of the Nyrius ARIES Pro was on full display when I used it seamlessly on a video shoot—transmitting a signal through a wall to a client monitor. When you’re using a new piece of gear, and especially if it’s something that will have the full attention of your clients or peers, it’s easy to become nervous that it might not work, or function at full capacity. The simplicity right out of the box and consistency of signal that the ARIES Pro provides is going to impress clients nine hundred, ninety-nine times out of a thousand. For $249, it’s a no-brainer recommendation.

The Nyrius ARIES Pro might not be the end all be all of wireless HDMI streaming, but what it does is give you a consistent, solid unit that’s easy to use in multiple ways. It’s flexible, and for in home, and on location work it’s very powerful, failing only in minor ways that don’t get in the way of you or your client’s experience. The Nyrius ARIES Pro has quickly become an important part of not only my home office, but my camera rig– It’s not often that I have the pleasure of saying something as cool as that.

Nyrius ARIES Pro Wireless HDMI Transmitter & Receiver

Take control of your HD video and wirelessly stream to the screen of your choice. The Nyrius ARIES Pro Transmitter (NPCS600) allows you to unchain your HDMI device from your TV in razor sharp, uncompressed 1080p 3D video – it’s like an invisible HDMI cable. Eliminate messy or constraining cables to give you full freedom in the living room, office, in the sky, and on filming locations.

The ARIES Pro Wireless HD for Laptops from Nyrius facilitates wireless transmission of audio / video signals up to 160′ (48.8 m) with line-of-sight. Video signals between the transmitter and receiver can also pass through walls, into different rooms. Whether your computer is in the same room or at the opposite end of your house, ARIES Pro always transmits video and audio with no latency.

With the flexibility of being able to connect up to eight transmitters to one receiver, you can also use ARIES Pro with devices that have a USB port to power the transmitter. Connect to your PS3, Xbox, satellite or cable receiver and switch between transmitters with the included remote.

The transmitter and receiver support HDMI and will not interfere with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi signals throughout your home. There's no software required for your computer and the device connects directly to an HDMI port. Setup takes only a minute.

Bret Hoy is a filmmaker, photographer and writer based out of St. Louis, Missouri. Mainly focused on documentary and experimental film, he has produced, directed, shot and edited many short films and a few long form works.

Sorry for a 2nd comment but I want to clarify something Bret. You say the transmitter must be powered, yes? I noticed in the Nyrius promo video on this page, it just shows the transmitter being plugged into the HDMI port on the computer and does NOT show a separate power cable. So, the transmitter is not powered via the HDMI connection? I understand that the receiver would need power but it seems logical that the transmitter would get power via the HDMI. I ask because where I could see this being a HUGE help would be with our Ronin M rig, transmitting video back to a director’s monitor so he/she can see what I’m shooting and not have to follow me around looking over my shoulder. On the Nyrius website is shows the transmitter plugged into a DSLR but does not show a power cable. However, in the copy is says, “Add a USB power source…”. So, the video is misleading as is the photo on their website. Please comfirm for me and other readers that we MUST have separate power for the transmitter. Thanks for the good article.

While it’s definitely possible that other Nyrius systems are powered in other ways, the rig that I reviewed in this post was powered via a Mini-USB to USB that plugs into the HDMI transmitter itself. For my camera work I ended up going P-Tap to Mini-USB to power it.

I have the same HDMI bundle from cineready, it’s exactly the same( or from IDX and Paralinx) but the funny thing is that the items from IDX and Paralinx costs more then 1K, I paid 599€ for the Cineready in Germany, it works great, and you need power supply for the receiver and the transmitter.